April 18, 2017
What America Can Learn from China’s People’s Liberation Army
President Trump recently called for a $54 billion increase in military spending to “send a message to the world… of American strength, security, and resolve.” The U.S. defense establishment is currently grappling with how these additional funds should be spent to achieve the stated objective. Merely investing in increasing the size of our forces is ineffective. Instead, the United States must prioritize modernizing its capabilities to meet new types of threats. As the United States advances down this path, it could look towards an unlikely source for inspiration: the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). China watchers around the world continue to characterize the PLA as a “paper tiger”, but the United States could stand to learn a thing or two about force modernization from its Asian counterpart.
China’s last major conflict with a foreign adversary, its failed offensive in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war, led foreign commentators and military experts to deem the PLA a “ragtag” military that was disorganized and underfunded. Generally, the PLA lacked the technology and organizational wherewithal needed to fight even the smallest of adversaries. Today, the PLA has undergone massive military modernization efforts. They still note that the PLA is “not ready” to fight in a modern war due to technological gaps in China’s air defense, the nature of the bureaucratic and corrupt Chinese state, and its lack of combat experience.
Read the full article at The National Interest.
More from CNAS
-
Why Washington Can’t Ignore Bangladesh
While Bangladesh may seem peripheral to U.S. foreign policy interests, ignoring it would be a strategic error....
By Keerthi Martyn
-
Trump-Lee Summit
Duyeon Kim, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security joins CNN to discuss the Trump-Lee Summit and the concerns should U.S. troops pivot to focus on Chi...
By Dr. Duyeon Kim
-
Upcoming Trump-Lee Summit: Modernizing the Alliance by First Reaffirming Long-Standing Principles
Trump and Lee could reaffirm their country’s commitment to the alliance amid shifting security dynamics and agree to modernize it in broad terms to meet the needs of today and...
By Dr. Duyeon Kim
-
South Korea-U.S. Launch Ulchi Drills as Kim Slams Exercise as “Hostile”
With North Korea's growing alignment with Moscow, plus renewed great-power diplomacy following President Trump's latest call with President Putin, the Korean Peninsula is once...
By Dr. Go Myong-Hyun